


Flight to Fight

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Shadowed Stars [6]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anla'shok | Rangers, Don't copy to another site, GFY, Gen, Minbari, Psi Corps, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: Lyta Alexander leaves Psi Corps at the same time as Talia and Susan, but her path takes her in a very different direction.
Series: Shadowed Stars [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/71449
Kudos: 5





	Flight to Fight

Lyta knows Susan and Talia are leaving. Those two aren't as discreet about it as they think they are. She knows she should tell someone, but she buries the knowledge as deep as she can, deeper than a surface scan will be able to pick up. Deep as her own desire to leave, letting what she picks up from them feed that.

She has to time everything right, or either they or she will be trapped while the Psi Corps tightens its grip on those who are still there. Trapped for an unknown period of time, and she doesn't want that. Not for her, not for them.

They leave Earth maybe an hour ahead of her, taking a different transport than she's chosen to hide on. Where they're going, she doesn't know, and doesn't care, so long as it isn't the same direction she is.

She transfers to a Centauri freighter from a colony, using her carefully horded credits to buy passage as far from human space as they're going. It leaves her on a planet she doesn't know, where most of the ships coming and going are Centauri.

One of those not Centauri is a Minbari ship, another freighter, and when she asks if they are willing to take a human anywhere that is away from Earth, she gets strange looks. The captain watches her for a long moment before asking why she wants to escape her own species.

Lyta is silent for a moment, watching the Minbari woman, letting herself listen to the surface thoughts around her. "Human telepaths that are not under Psi Corps control are killed, quickly if they're lucky, slowly if they're not. If we stay in human-controlled space, and are caught."

There's a wave of disquiet around her, and Lyta carefully doesn't listen to what the Minbari actually think of it.

She is given quarters, and the captain makes certain she has food, and she is left alone to adjust to the different way the ship keeps time. The way the Minbari keep time.

How long it is until she is escorted off the ship onto another, she doesn't know, but here is as far as the freighter will take her. There is a Minbari in robes, different from the red-brown uniforms of the freighter crew, waiting for her. To escort her to quarters, and to gently interrogate her.

Lyta is just getting used to the different measuring of time when she is approached by someone in fancier robes than the first Minbari - and she wishes they had given her names, but no one had told her, and she had forgotten to ask.

"I am Delenn." The woman smiles at her, gentle as the first Minbari she'd met, but there's something harder behind it. Or maybe just tougher. The immovable object. "I understand you are seeking a better place from which to serve the universe than where you were."

Close enough, though Lyta hadn't really thought of it in those terms. "I don't trust that Psi Corps will use my talents well, and I don't trust them not to harm me."

Susan had not been the first person she'd noticed harboring resentments to the Psi Corps over family matters. The first she recalls whose parent had died because of the Psi Corps, but that doesn't mean she's the only one. It's one thing when it's non-telepaths who resent the Corps. It's another when it's telepaths who are supposed to be cared for and supported by the Corps, and are instead harmed by it.

"May I ask your name?" Delenn's smile has faded into something more solemn, watching her with emotions that Lyta can't quite sort out.

"Lyta." She pauses, drawing a breath through her nose as she presses her lips together. "Lyta Alexander."

"It is an honor to meet you, Lyta Alexander." Delenn's smile returns, and this time it strikes Lyta as hiding secrets upon secrets, and she's not certain it would be safe to ask after those.

Delenn continues to visit her as the ship circles around to Minbar, and explains to her how Minbari treat their telepaths. There will be no requirement for her to earn her basic needs, which is more than Lyta expects. Even the Psi Corps doesn't truly provide for free.

On Minbar, Delenn introduces her to Sech Durhan and Sech Turval, and to the Anla'shok. It is not a request for her to join their ranks, but after half a cycle, she does so anyway. She needs something more than the safety of the work she can find here. The Anla'shok give her a chance to do that more. To travel, even if she avoids doing more with human space than skirting the edges of it.

Six years after she steps foot on Minbar, she meets the first group of human recruits - those who didn't come here fleeing their own, but seeking to join the Anla'shok. One comes seeking his own death, and she takes Cole aside to talk, to see if he is willing to face his own reasons yet. His death wish. If he does not, she will not share what she knows with anyone else, but she plans to keep a close eye on him.

Three cycles later - four years - she gives him and Neroon cover as they leave Minbar, and refusing to answer to anyone about why. That Marcus seems to at least have half a reason to live for someone, instead of dying for Delenn and the Rangers.

Eleven years and some months after she leaves Earth, Lyta sets foot on Babylon 5 for the first time, guarding those who come bearing a box from Valen for Delenn. She is distracted by the letter that had been given into her hands, with her name in her own hand on the outside, but wary enough of being where the Psi Corps might find her.

Even if it is the beginning of the end, and soon she will be forever out of their reach, with purpose enough for a lifetime.


End file.
